This was a conceptual magazine spread done highlighting a type designer of our choice. I chose influential type designer Zuzana Licko, who, along with her husband Rudy Vanderlans, founded magazine and type foundry Emigre. I chose to highlight her because there are so few influential females in the design industry, and even less so in the world of typography. Her achievements in design, as well as playing a role in revolutionizing digital typography, was very inspiring to me as a female myself.

THE PROCESS.

I first started by studying some of Zuzana's most well-known typefaces and some of Emigre's own magazine cover designs. What I found was that her style was very structural, and I wanted to reflect that style in my spread layout. I played with a few different concepts, each one highlighting an image of Zuzana and one of her typefaces, Oblong. The layouts I played with explored geometric shapes and bright, contrasty colors layered in a way that was reminiscent of many of the Emigre cover designs.

Playing with layout concepts.

Playing with layout concepts.

THE RESULT.

The final spread that was chosen was the simplest one of the bunch -- really bringing attention to what mattered most: Zuzana and her beautiful work.

THE ROLE.

I was the sole designer on the project from beginning to end and used a photo of Zuzana taken from a biography of Zuzana and her husband, Rudy Vanderlans, on AIGA.com. Read the biography here -- they're great!